


Fitting In

by hellkitty



Category: Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-02
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little giftfic for merfilly. Her Skyfire's everything I wish mine could be. A humble offering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fitting In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



Skyfire smiled shyly as he ducked into the stone-cut doorway into the lab. He’d learned by now to fold his wings down, keep them tight and narrow when indoors, though it had already taken dozens of white scrapes along stone and metal to teach him that. He tried to ignore the lesson that it taught him: you don’t fit in here.   
The equipment, the smell, gleaming, sharp, sterile, called to him: science did not care who he was. Science did not mistrust him because of his former (was it former? He hated to think it) friendship. Scales, alembics, microscopes, beakers, racks and racks of neatly ordered acids and bases—they spoke, in a strange, neutral way, of comfort and love. Someone worked here, someone cared enough to keep it tidy and safe. The soft hum of an autoclave in the corner even filled him with a strange, half-remembered happiness, like a lullaby, soothing and ancient.

“Hello?” he said, pitching his voice quietly, not to disturb the mech they’d told him would be waiting for him here.

“O-oh!” A voice, from the table, and then one of the microscopes unfolded, mass shifting to stand by the table, clutching a slide in his hand. “They’d told me you were coming but I surmise I must have gotten distracted.” He held up the slide. “Diatoms, you see.”

“Diatoms.” Skyfire leaned in. “Indigenous waterborne organisms?”

The mech’s face lit up. “Yes! Individualized to a particular aqueous environment. One can actually discern the precise source of a waterborne sample by correlation with diatomic incidence.”

The mech’s energy was infectious, and Skyfire felt a smile—a real one, sincere—bloom across his face. He’d half-feared that working in a lab again would bring back too many memories: Starscream and his quicksilver wit, his almost harsh humor. But this mech was ebullient, eager, without any edge at all, simply radiating a joy of science like a warm flame. Skyfire stepped further in, closer to the red mech, feeling the glow between them like a familiar light of home. “Do you need help collecting samples?”

“Wh-why yes. That would be exceedingly helpful! The more samples, the more accurate our study. Why, I’ve heard that human law enforcement has used diatoms as a forensic indicator and perhaps, well, I’m sure Optimus would be quite pleased if we could expand their known database. And it’s always quite a good feeling, don’t you think, when others can benefit so directly from science?”

Every pure-scientist’s private worry—that his work was considered, perhaps was—useless to the society he wanted to serve, that research was pure selfishness, a solitary, intellectual, and thus guilty pleasure. “I’d really like to help.”

“Help! Of course.” The red mech beamed up at him. “But first, you should see them for yourself. Truly fascinating.” He bounded back onto the table, folding down again, offering his scope. “You’ll find them truly remarkable. Nearly infinite variety.”

Skyfire moved in. “I guess I’m used to macro-varieties. Most of my research has been interstellar.” He squinted into the proffered lens. They were…amazing. Dozens of different shapes, colors, motility.   
The voice was muffled, but no less enthusiastic. “Well then, I see we are good complements to each other.”

Complements? Yes. He’d thought so long that the only mech he fitted with, the only mech he matched, like a molecule into a chain, was Starscream. And as the mech went on about metallurgical formations in stars and stellar chemistry, Skyfire thought that perhaps there were different fits he had, different matches he could make, different chemicals. For the first time, something like actual hope flared in him.

“I-I’m Skyfire,” he said, awkwardly. His courtesy had corroded, all those ages in the ice. This was his new labmate, after all. It was best to keep manners, and respect.

“Oh my, yes, that. I’m sorry,” the microscope chattered. “My manners, gone. Just…gone. My name is Perceptor and I cannot tell you how glad I am to finally have a partner who understands.”

Skyfire’s laser core gave a hard, happy pulse. “Yes.”


End file.
